“I just cannot understand why I am saying things over and over,” Anissa declared. Her thin frame had rounded a little during her pregnancy, but now the skin seemed to hang loosely on her bones. “Does no one listen? Have I not had enough pain and suffer...sufferance?”
“Don’t fret yourself too much, dear,” Merolanna told her. “You have had a terrible time, yes, but you have a fine, fine son. His father will be very proud.”
“Yes, he is fine, is he not?” Anissa smiled at the infant, who was staring raptly up at his nurse in that guileless, hearttugging way that babies had—the only thing about them that ever made Utta regret her own choices in life. It
“What will you name him?” Utta asked. “If you do not mind saying before the ceremony.”
“Olin, of course. Like his father. Well, Olin Alessandros— Alessandros was my grandfather’s name, the grand viscount of Devonis.” Anissa sounded a bit nettled. “Olin. What else would I name him?”
Utta did not point out that the king had already had two other sons, neither of whom had been given his name. Anissa was an insecure creature, but she had reason to be: her husband was imprisoned, her stepchildren all gone, and her only claim to authority was this tiny child. Small surprise she would want to remind everyone constantly of who the father was and what the child represented.
Somebody knocked at the chamber door. One of the queen’s other maids left the group of whispering women and opened it, then exchanged a few words with one of the wolf-liveried guards who stood outside. “It is the physician, Highness,” she called.
Merolanna and Utta exchanged a startled look as the door swung open, but it was Brother Okros, not Chaven, who stepped into the room. The scholar, dressed in the winecolored robes of Eastmarch Academy, bowed deeply and stayed down on one knee. “Your Highness,” he said. “Ah, and Your Grace.” He rose, then added a bow for Utta and the others. “Ladies.”
“You may come to me, Okros,” called Anissa. “I am all in a trouble. My milk, it hardly ever flows. If I did not have Doirrean, I do not know what I would do.”
Utta, who was impressed that Anissa was nursing at all—it was not terribly common among the upper classes, and she would have guessed the queen would be only too glad to hand the child over to a wet nurse— turned away to let the physician talk to his patient. The other ladies-in-waiting came forward and surrounded the queen’s bed, listening.
“We haven’t spoken to Okros yet,” said Merolanna quietly, “and this would be a good time.”
“Speak to him about what?”
“We can ask him about those strange things the little person said. That House of the Moon jabber. If it’s to do with Chaven, then perhaps Okros will recognize what it means. Perhaps it’s something that any of those doctoring fellows would know.”
Utta felt a sudden pang of fear, although she could not say exactly why. “You want to...tell him? About what the Queen’s Ears said?”
Merolanna waved her beringed hand. “Not all of it—I’m no fool. I’m certainly not going to tell anyone that we heard all this from a Rooftopper—a little person the size of my finger.”
“But...but these matters are secret!”
“It’s been a tennight or more and I’m no closer to finding out what happened to my son. Okros is a good man—a smart one, too. He’ll tell us if he recognizes any of this. You let me take charge, Utta. You worry too much.”
Brother Okros had finished with the queen and was writing down a list of instructions for her ladies. “Just remember, he is too young for sops.”
“But he loves to suck the sugar and milk from my finger,” said Anissa, pouting.
“You may give him milk on your finger, but not sugar. He does not need it. And tell your nurses not to swaddle him so tightly.”
“But it will give him such a fine neck, my handsome Sandro.”
“And bent shoulders, and perhaps even a pigeon chest. No, tell them to swaddle him loosely enough that the act would not wake him if he was sleeping.”
“Nonsense. But, of course, if you are saying it must be so...” Anissa looked as though she would probably deliberately forget this advice as soon as the physician had left the room.
Okros bowed, a smile wrinkling his thin, leathery face. “Thank you, Your Highness. Blessings of the Trigon— and Kupilas and our good Madi Surazem—upon you.” He made the sign of the Three, then turned to Merolanna and Utta, bowing again. “Ladies.”
Merolanna laid a hand on his arm as he passed. “Oh, would you wait for a moment outside, Brother Okros? I have something I would ask you. Will you excuse us, Anissa, dear? I mean, Your Highness? I must go and have a little rest—my age, you know.”
Anissa was gazing raptly at her infant son again, watching Doirrean swathe him in linen. “Of course, dear Merolanna. You are so kind to visit me. You will come to the Carrying, of course—Sandro’s naming ceremony? It is only little while from now, on the day before the Kerneia—what do you call that day here?”
“Prophets’ Day,” said Merolanna.
“Yes, Prophet’s Day. And
Utta nodded. “Thank you, Highness.”
“Oh, I would not miss it for a bag of golden dolphins, Anissa,” Merolanna assured her. “Miss my newest nephew being welcomed into the family? Of course I will be there.”
Okros was waiting for them in the antechamber. He smiled and bowed again, then turned to walk beside them down the tower steps. Utta saw that the duchess really was tired —Merolanna was walking slowly, and with a bit of a limp because of the pains in her hip.
“What can I offer you, Your Grace?” Okros asked.
“Some information, to be honest. May I assume you still have not heard anything from Chaven?”
He shook his head. “To my deep regret, no. There are so many things I would like to ask him. Taking on his duties has left me with many questions, many confusions. I miss his counsel—and his presence, too, of course. Our friendship goes back many years.”
“Do you know anything about the moon?”
Okros looked a little startled by the apparent change of subject, but shrugged his slender shoulders. “It depends, I suppose. Do you mean the object that rides the skies above us at night and sometimes in the day—yes, see, there it is now, pale as a seashell! Or the goddess Mesiya of the silver limbs? Or the moon’s effect on women’s courses and the ocean’s tides?”
“Not any of those things,” said Merolanna. “At least I don’t think so. Have you ever heard of anything called the House of the Moon?”
He was silent for so long that Utta thought they had upset him somehow, but when he spoke he sounded just as before. “Do you mean the palace of Khors? The old moon demon conquered by the Trigon? His palace is spoken of in some of the poems and stories of ancient days, called by that name, House of the Moon.”
“It could be. Did Chaven ever own something that could be called a piece of the moon’s house?”
Now he looked at her carefully, as though he hadn’t really noticed the duchess until just this moment—which was nonsense, of course. Utta knew it was her own nerves making her see phantoms.
“What makes you ask such a question?” he said at last. “I never thought to hear such dusty words of scholarship from you, Your Grace.”
“Why shouldn’t I?” Merolanna was annoyed. “I’m not a fool, am I?”
“Oh, no, Your Grace, no!” Okros laughed—a little anxiously, it seemed to Utta. “I meant no such thing. It’s just that such old legends, such...trivial old stories...it surprises me to hear such things from you when I would more expect them from one of my brother scholars in the Eastmarch library.” He bowed his head, thinking. “I remember nothing about Chaven and anything to do with the House of the Moon, but I will give it some thought, and perhaps even have a look at the letters Chaven sent to me over the years—it could be some investigation he had undertaken that I have forgotten.” He paused, rubbing his chin. “May I ask what makes you inquire about
